From the Habsburg Empire to the Age of Extremes. Physical Anthropology at Lviv University 1913-1944

From the beginning of its establishment in the mid-nineteenth century, physical anthropology was a discipline of an enormous international extent. Placed between zoology, medicine and ethnology, it gathered different professions from all over the world around the promise of objective modern science. Nevertheless, it had its specific national or local characteristics. At Lviv University, the first chair of anthropology and ethnology was established in 1913, but already before this date, the former Siberian convict and zoologist Benedykt Dybowski had taught the basics of the new discipline at the Jan-Kazimierz-University. In her lecture, she was explored the impact of different political framings on the shape of this allegedly pure science. Starting from the inter-war period with the famous Lviv-school of Jan Czekanowski, the researcher was proceeded to World War II and trace the discipline’s changes and continuities in the age of extremes.